"In our BYOD programme, people were using consumer file-sharing and collaboration apps that they found on their own," says Herve Coureil, Chief Information Officer of Schneider Electric. "We wanted to bring that under control, so we searched for a tool that had a consumer look and feel but enterprise chops."

Schneider Electric turned to Box not only for their content management and enterprise-level security, but also because Box did not require IT to replace or rebuild its current infrastructure. Box gives IT centralised management and control, while also providing a user-friendly experience, simple document sharing and global mobile access.

In order to test the power of Box, Schneider Electric started with a 4,200-person pilot programme. Users were so happy with their experience that IT couldn't contain deployment and Box went viral. Employees were inviting colleagues to join so quickly that Box took off — without any push from IT — at a rate of 1,000 users every 1.5 weeks.

Improving sharing, collaboration and communication

Box immediately solved Schneider Electric's internal and external sharing issues since employees could share their files with a simple, secure link that could have password protection, expiry dates or restricted download access. Schneider Electric could easily and securely run large Request for Proposals (RFPs), communicate with vendors and share video and presentation files — all from Box.

Schneider Electric also struggled with supporting 2,500+ corporate mobile devices, as well as mobile and offline content access. With Box, employees always have access to their documents, anywhere, on any device. Sales teams can also access presentations and marketing collateral anywhere — even on the way to meet clients.

Box also improved communication and collaboration among employees and partners. With the Box commenting feature, any collaborator can provide feedback on a document, keeping all discussions together in one central place. Box also improved internal communication by hosting the CEO's monthly webcast, making it accessible to employees around the globe.

Schneider's IT team regains control

Aside from the robust file access and sharing, Box also enabled Schneider Electric's IT teams to retain control over their data. Using auditing and tracking features, IT can view the activity of any user account or any file, meaning all the data previously lost to consumer user accounts is now centralised and governed by Schneider.

As a cloud-based solution, Box is platform-agnostic, so it was easy to layer over existing ecosystems. Without having to replace or rebuild systems, IT was able to implement Box quickly, with minimal employee training and downtime.

67,000+ users and 30% savings

As a result of the ease of use and improved collaboration, Schneider Electric currently has 67,000+ users on Box, and the adoption rate continues to increase. Employee communication and productivity is booming, and real work can get done in or out of the office.

"Overwhelmingly, users are telling us that Box is making them more productive," says Coureil.

Schneider Electric also stores 20 TB of data in Box — all accessible and governed by Schneider's internal IT teams. Thanks to Box, Schneider has offloaded their on-premise file servers, cutting overall costs by 30%.